.NET 3.5
Provides support for .NET 3.5 and legacy support for .NET 2.0 and .NET 3.0 APIs. APIs allow applications to interact with the operating system or services. This may be required for the application you’re are trying to install; vendor documentation will usually be very explicit in telling you what needs to be installed as a prerequisite for the application.
.NET 4.8
Windows Server 2022 ships with the newer .NET 4.8, which is installed by default. This feature can also add support for ASP.NET 4.8 and adds support for WCF Services. Many newer applications are taking advantage of these features. Check with your application vendor to see if it supports .NET 4.8.
Background Intelligent Transfer Service
Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) is used to transfer files between servers and clients and will provide progress information on the status of those transfers. It’s very commonly used by the Windows operating system to download updates.
The cool thing about BITS is that if the connection is for some reason lost, BITS will suspend the transfer. When the connection is back up, BITS will resume the transfer as if something happened.
There is a service installed by default with the Windows Server 2022 OS, so you don’t need to install this feature unless an application requires the feature to serve its purpose.
BitLocker Drive Encryption
BitLocker Drive Encryption is responsible for encrypting the entire hard drive and its contents on systems where it has been enabled. On modern systems with a TPM 1.2 or later chip, BitLocker ensures that the system has not been tampered with while the system was offline. Assuming the hardware checks out okay, it will boot.
Systems with older TPM chips can still use BitLocker, but it is not as user-friendly. Older TPM chips (pre-1.2) do not check for system integrity like the newer TPM chips do either.
BitLocker can lock the startup process until the user enters a PIN. This ensures that the user is the authorized user and will prevent data loss from an unencrypted drive if the system is stolen while offline.
BitLocker Network Unlock
The BitLocker Network Unlock feature was introduced in Windows Server 2012. It gives systems the ability to automatically unlock BitLocker if the system is on the corporate network. This can make patch management simpler if a company is using a Wake on LAN technology to wake systems up for patching or software installations.
BitLocker Network Unlock does have some dependencies on DHCP, so make sure that you’re running DHCP in your environment if you want to use it.
BranchCache
You may recall from the File and Storage Service role that BranchCache is a bandwidth optimization technology that copies files from main office file servers and caches the content locally at remote (branch) locations. For users at the remote locations, this means that they can access files with decreased latency. This also means that their network traffic is not crossing the network to the main office to retrieve files, which can improve bandwidth utilization significantly.
Turning on the BranchCache feature on a server enables you to turn your server into a hosted cache server or a BranchCache-enabled content server.
Client for NFS
If you have Unix- or Linux-based file servers in your environment that are using the NFS protocol, installing the Client for NFS feature will allow your server to access the NFS shares, so long as the shares allow anonymous access.
Containers
If you want to run Hyper-V Containers or Windows Server Containers, you need to enable this feature. If you want a higher degree of isolation and want to go with Hyper-V containers, you need to enable the Hyper-V role in addition to the Containers feature.
When the containers feature is installed, you have more steps to getting to a working container host like installing Docker and pulling base images. In the Standard edition, you can have unlimited Windows containers, but you can only have two Hyper-V containers. In the Datacenter edition, both Windows containers and Hyper-V containers are unlimited.
Containers are an exciting new technology that was first introduced in Windows Server 2016. For more on containers, check out Book 8.
Data Center Bridging
If your server is going to be used for clustering or for storage, you should consider enabling Data Center Bridging (DCB). DCB allows you to prioritize certain kinds of traffic over others (think of it like a traffic cop). It allows you to utilize your hardware for better bandwidth allocation as well.
Direct Play
Direct Play is a part of the DirectX API and has been deprecated. You must have Desktop Experience enabled to be able to enable the Direct Play feature. You may still run into applications that require the Direct Play API, though, this is unlikely to be found on a server because it was traditionally used for gaming.
Enhanced Storage
Enhanced Storage enables support for additional functions that are available when you use Enhanced Storage–compatible devices. These devices have built-in safety features that can require you to authenticate before you can access the data on the drive. This is very commonly used in USB flash drives.
Failover Clustering
Failover Clustering is a feature used to provide high availability to server roles. It’s often used for file servers, Hyper-V hosts, and database applications like Microsoft SQL Server. If a server in a failover cluster fails, services can be moved almost seamlessly to another server in the cluster. Systems in a failover cluster are referred to as nodes. Failover clusters take advantage of shared storage so that all nodes have access to the same data. If a failover event occurs, the transition from node to node can be as seamless as possible, because each node has access to the same storage.
For more on high availability with the Failover Clustering feature, check out Book 7, Chapter 5. There, I discuss Failover Clustering in relation to Hyper-V, but the way it works is pretty similar regardless of which application is using it.
Group Policy Management
Group Policy Management is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) for managing group policies across your environment. It allows you to create, edit, delete, and assign group policies all the way down to an OU level. It can also be used to enforce a Group Policy Object.
Host